I had a very early start to the day for my return trip. My flight from Munich to Chicago departed at 11:25 AM so I wanted to be sure I had plenty of time to connect – and even to catch a backup flight should my original flight get canceled. So I was booked on a 6:20 AM flight from the Cologne/Bonn airport to Munich. I booked a ride with Suntransfers and my only complaint was that they were non-negotiable as to pickup time and that was at 3:55 AM. At that time of day, with no traffic and it’s a short drive anyway, I was at the airport around 4:30 AM and the Lufthansa ticket counter didn’t even open until 5 AM so I had to stand there for half an hour with my bags. Ah well, certainly better than being late.

CGN airport is quite small. In fact, on their website, the motto is: so simple. There are two terminals. Terminal 1 handles Lufthansa, Germanwings, Austrian and Star Alliance partners and Terminal 2 handles all other airlines. Each Terminal has a lounge. In T2 it’s a generic business lounge for all the airlines while in T1 it’s a Lufthansa-branded lounge.

As the airport is small, so is the lounge. However with Lufthansa being the dominant carrier I can see that it might get crowded with elite travelers gaining access even if they’re on an economy ticket. It opens at 5:30 AM so I had to wait a bit for entry.

The lounge is circular in shape and one side of the room has the comfortable lounging chairs while the other side has tables and chairs for dining.

Since Narita Airport is so far from downtown Tokyo (over an hour’s drive on a good day) and traffic is always a question mark, Viking arranged for me to leave the hotel at 6:30 AM for my 11:15 AM flight. As it turned out, traffic was light and we made very good time. Another couple from our cruise was in the same van but they were flying KLM so there were two Viking assistants there to meet us at the airport. One took the KLM couple to the south check-in point while mine loaded my bags on a cart and guided me to the north check-in.

As I was in ANA First, we walked back to the Z check-in area which is a private area for ANA, United and other airlines. There were about 4 ANA reps inside and I was the only passenger at that point so it felt a little strange (but nice!) to be doted on so much. Check-in was very efficient and I was directed to the dedicated security lane, the one that can only be accessed directly from the First Class check-in area. Naturally that process was speedy as well.

Then it was down the escalator to Immigration, where, of course, I picked the line that didn’t move. But I had plenty of time and once the one person holding up the line finally got through, our line moved efficiently as well.

I turned left and walked past a number of shops and one gate before coming to the escalator leading to the airline lounges.

Our flight to Hong Kong landed a few minutes early and the three of us followed the signs to the gate for our next flight. The closest lounge was The Cabin. We saw the little “cabin” on the main concourse and found that it was basically just a signpost for the elevator or stairs that would take us down to the actual lounge.

My first impression was that it was a bit dark inside but part of that was due to the overcast day. Once we got past the main entrance there were massive windows all along one wall, overlooking the tarmac. In some ways it was a great view for avgeeks but it appeared all the planes were for shorthaul flights and they were all Cathay or Cathay Dragon branded so there wasn’t a whole lot of variety. Still, if the operations side of an airport is of interest to you, this could be a fun place to wait for your next flight.

As I mentioned in the second post in this series, I’d heard wonderful things about the Turkish Airlines lounge in the Istanbul Airport and wanted to check it out on my return flight. The folks at SeaSong came and picked me up at the Radisson Blu Bosphorus and I enjoyed a private transfer. My guide even came into the airport with me and ushered me through the ticket counter and up to the security checkpoint. On our whole trip we enjoyed great customer service from the folks at SeaSong.

With a little time to kill, I set out in search of the lounge. Maybe I didn’t know what to look for, signage-wise, but in the end I just stumbled upon it at the end of the concourse.Continue reading →